The body of each chapter discusses the more common mechanistic pathways

and suggests practical tips for drawing them. The discussion of each type of

vi

Preface to the Student

mechanism contains both solved and unsolved problems. You are urged to work

the unsolved problems yourself.

* Common error alerts are scattered throughout the text to warn you about common pitfalls and misconceptions that bedevil students. Pay attention to these

alerts, as failure to observe their strictures has caused many, many exam points

to be lost over the years.

Occasionally you will see indented, tightly spaced paragraphs, such as this one. The information in these paragraphs is usually of a parenthetical nature, either because it deals

with formalisms, minor points, or exceptions to general rules, or because it deals with

topics that extend beyond the scope of the textbook.

Extensive problem sets are found at the end of all chapters. The only way you

will learn to draw reaction mechanisms is to work the problems! If you do not

work problems, you will not learn the material. The problems vary in difficulty

from relatively easy to very difficult. Many of the reactions covered in the problem sets are classical organic reactions, including many "name reactions." All examples are taken from the literature. Additional problems may be found in other

textbooks. Ask your librarian, or consult some of the books discussed below.

Detailed answer keys are provided in a separate volume that is available

for download from the Springer-Verlag web site (http://www.springer-ny.com/

supplements/rgrossman/) at no additional cost. The answer key is formatted in

PDF. You can view or print the document on any platform with Adobe's Acrobat

Reader@,a program that is available for free from Adobe's web site (http://www.

adobe.com). It is important for you to be able to work the problems without looking at the answers. Understanding what makes Pride and Prejudice a great novel

is not the same as being able to write a great novel yourself. The same can be

said of mechanisms. If you find you have to look at the answer to solve a problem, be sure that you work the problem again a few days later. Remember, you

will have to work problems like these on exams. If you can't solve them at home

without looking at the answer, how do you expect to solve them on exams when

the answers are no longer available?

This book definitely does not attempt to teach specific synthetic procedures, reactions, or strategies. Only rarely will you be asked to predict the products of a particular reaction. This book also does not attempt to teach physical organic chemistry, i.e., how mechanisms are proved or disproved in the laboratory. Before you

can learn how to determine reaction mechanisms experimentally, you must learn

what qualifies as a reasonable mechanism in the first place. Isotope effects, Hammett

plots, kinetic analysis, and the like are all left to be learned from other textbooks.

Graduate students and advanced undergraduates in organic, biological, and

medicinal chemistry will find the knowledge gained from a study of this book

invaluable for both their graduate careers, especially cumulative exams, and their

professional work.

Robert B. Grossman

Lexington, Kentucky

Preface to the Instructor

Intermediate organic chemistry textbooks generally fall into two categories. Some

4th ed. (New York: Wiley, 1992) provides a great deal of information on mechanism, but its emphasis is synthesis, and it is more a reference book than a textbook. Scudder's Electron Flow in Organic Chemistry is an excellent textbook

on mechanism, but it is suited more for introductory organic chemistry than for

textbook most closely allied in purpose and method to the present one. This book

provides an alternative to Miller and Edenborough.

Existing textbooks usually fail to show how common mechanistic steps link

seemingly disparate reactions, or how seemingly similar transformations often

have wildly disparate mechanisms. For example, substitutions at carbonyls and

nucleophilic aromatic substitutions are usually dealt with in separate chapters in

other textbooks, despite the fact that the mechanisms are essentially identical,

and aromatic substitutions via diazonium ions are often dealt with in the same

chapter as S R ~substitution

l

reactions! This textbook, by contrast, is organized

according to mechanistic types, not according to overall transformations. This

viii

Preface to the Instructor

rather unusual organizational structure, borrowed from Miller's book, is better

suited to teaching students how to draw reasonable mechanisms than the more

traditional structures, perhaps because the all-important first steps of mechanisms

are usually more closely related to the conditions under which the reaction is executed than they are to the overall transformation. The first chapter of the book

provides general information on such basic concepts as Lewis structures, resonance structures, aromaticity, hybridization, and acidity. It also shows how nucleophiles, electrophiles, and leaving groups can be recognized, and provides

practical techniques for determining the general mechanistic type of a reaction

and the specific chemical transformations that need to be explained. The following five chapters examine polar mechanisms taking place under basic conditions, polar mechanisms taking place under acidic conditions, pericyclic reactions, free-radical reactions, and transition-metal-mediated and -catalyzed

reactions, giving typical examples and general mechanistic patterns for each class

of reaction along with practical advice for solving mechanism problems.

This textbook is not a physical organic chemistry textbook! The sole purpose

of this textbook is to teach students how to come up with reasonable mechanisms

for reactions that they have never seen before. As most chemists know, it is usually possible to draw more than one reasonable mechanism for any given reaction. For example, both an SN2and a single electron transfer mechanism can be

drawn for many substitution reactions, and either a one-step concerted or a twostep radical mechanism can be drawn for [2 21 photocycloadditions. In cases

like these, my philosophy is that the student should develop a good command of

simple and generally sufficient reaction mechanisms before learning the modifications that are necessitated by detailed mechanistic analysis. I try to teach students how to draw reasonable mechanisms themselves, not to teach them the

"right" mechanisms for various reactions.

In all chapters I have made a great effort to show the forest for the trees,

i.e., to demonstrate how just a few concepts can unify disparate reactions. This

philosophy has led to some unusual pedagogical decisions. For example, in the

chapter on polar reactions under acidic conditions, protonated carbonyl compounds are depicted as carbocations in order to show how they undergo the

same three fundamental reactions (addition of a nucleophile, fragmentation,

and rearrangement) that other carbocations undergo. Radical anions are also

drawn in an unusual manner to emphasize their reactivity in SRNlsubstitution

reactions.

Some unusual organizational decisions have been made, too. SRNlreactions

and carbene reactions are treated in the chapter on polar reactions under basic

conditions. Most books on mechanism discuss SRNlreactions at the same time

as other free-radical reactions, and carbenes are usually discussed at the same

time as carbocations, to which they bear some similarities. I decided to place

these reactions in the chapter on polar reactions under basic conditions because

of the book's emphasis on teaching practical methods for drawing reaction mechanisms. Students cannot be expected to look at a reaction and know immediately

that its mechanism involves an electron-deficient intermediate. Rather, the mech-

+

Preface to the Instructor

ix

anism should flow naturally from the starting materials and the reaction conditions. SRNlreactions always proceed under strongly basic conditions, as do most

reactions involving carbenes, so these classes of reactions are treated in the chapter on polar reactions under basic conditions. However, Favorskii rearrangements

are treated in the chapter on pericyclic reactions, despite the basic conditions under which these reactions occur, to emphasize the pericyclic nature of the key

ring contraction step.

Stereochemistry is not discussed in great detail, except in the context of the

Woodward-Hoffmann rules. Molecular orbital theory is also given generally

short shrift, again except in the context of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. I have

found that students must master the basic principles of drawing mechanisms before additional considerations such as stereochemistry and MO theory are loaded

onto the edifice. Individual instructors might wish to put more emphasis on stereoelectronic effects and the like as their tastes and their students' abilities dictate.

I agonized a good deal over which basic topics should be covered in the first

chapter. I finally decided to review a few important topics from introductory organic chemistry in a cursory fashion, reserving detailed discussions for common

misconceptions. A basic familiarity with Lewis structures and electron-pushing

is assumed. I rely on Weeks's excellent workbook, Pushing Electrons: A Guide

for Students of Organic Chemistry, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1998), to refresh students' electron-pushing abilities. If Weeks fails to bring students up to

speed, an introductory organic chemistry textbook should probably be consulted.

I have written the book in a very informal style. The second person is used pervasively, and an occasional first-person pronoun creeps in, too. Atoms and molecules are anthropomorphized constantly. The style of the book is due partly to

its evolution from a series of lecture notes, but I also feel strongly that anthropomorphization and exhortations addressed directly to the student aid greatly in pushing students to think for themselves. I vividly remember my graduate physical organic chemistry instructor asking, "What would you do if you were an electron?",

and I remember also how much easier mechanisms were to solve after he asked

that question. The third person and the passive tense certainly have their place in

scientific writing, but if we want to encourage students to take intellectual control of the material themselves, then maybe we should stop talking about our theories and explanations as if they were phenomena that happened only "out there"

and instead talk about them as what they are, i.e., our best attempts at rationalizing the bewildering array of phenomena that Nature presents to us.

I have not included references in this textbook for several reasons. The primary literature is full of reactions, but the mechanisms of these reactions are

rarely drawn, and even when they are, it is usually in a cursory fashion, with crucial details omitted. Moreover, as stated previously, the purpose of this book is

not to teach students the "correct" mechanisms, it is to teach them how to draw

reasonable mechanisms using their own knowledge and some basic principles

and mechanistic types. In my opinion, references in this textbook would serve

little or no useful pedagogical purpose. However, some general guidance as to

where to look for mechanistic information is provided.

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Preface to the Instructor

I hope that the reader will be tolerant of these and other idiosyncrasies.

Suggestions for topics to include or on ways that the existing material can be

clarified are most welcome.

All the chapters in this book except for the one on transition-metal-mediated